The Longhai railway was built over the course of half a century by four different governments of China: the
Qing dynasty, the
Beiyang Government, the
Nationalist Government and the
People's Republic. The first section of the railway, entirely within
Henan, from
Kaifeng to
Luoyang was built from 1905 to 1909 by a venture between the Qing dynasty and a Belgian joint-stock company backed by France and Russia. and later during
Operation Ichi-Go. Construction of the
Tianshui to
Lanzhou section, entirely within Gansu, broke ground in May 1946 but was halted by the
Chinese Civil War, then resumed under the People's Republic in April 1950 and was completed in July 1953. At this time, the entire Longhai railway entered into operation. In the late 1950s through early 1960s, new railways were built from Lanzhou to the west: the
Lanzhou–Xinjiang railway to
Xinjiang (later connected to
Kazakhstan) and the
Lanzhou–Qinghai railway to
Qinghai (later
extended to Tibet). From 1956 to 1970, the section between
Zhengzhou, Henan, and
Baoji, Shaanxi, was upgraded to the dual-track line. During the same time, in Henan the line near
Sanmenxia was re-routed due to the Sanmenxia Reservoir Project. The Zhengzhou to
Shangqiu section was converted to dual-track in 1980. The railway is a central section in the
New Eurasian Land Bridge. ==Cities and rail junctions along route==